Bill Fletcher, nationally known labor and racial justice activist, addresses a Portland audience on the topic "How Do We Fight Back in the Age of Obama?" Past director of Trans Africa, on the editorial board of the Black Commentator, past Education Director of the AFL-CIO, Fletcher's latest book is "They're Bankrupting Us! And 20 Other Myths about Unions."

EARTH DAY SPECIAL: A UNION REPRESENTING THOUSANDS OF ENERGY WORKERS OPPOSES A PIPELINE? AND THE UNION IS CANADIAN, AND THE PIPELINE IS THE KEYSTONE XL? WHAT'S MORE, THE UNION ADVOCATES MOVING TO A LOW-CARBON ECONOMY?

LISTEN AS WE TALK WITH PRESIDENT DAVE COLES OF THE COMMUNICATIONS, ENERGY AND PAPERWORKERS UNION OF CANADA, CEP, TO UNDERSTAND HOW THIS UNION IS FACING UP TO CLIMATE CHANGE. MAYBE OUR NEIGHBORS TO THE NORTH CAN EXPORT SOME GOOD ENVIRONMENTAL & LABOUR CONSCIOUSNESS INSTEAD OF SOME PLUNDERED RESOURCES. THEN AMALGAMATED TRANSIT UNION PRESIDENT LARRY HANLEY JOINS US AS WE LEARN WHY TRANSIT WORKERS OPPOSE THE KEYSTONE XL, TOO.

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Labor Radio often brings you stories on real specific, immediate struggles, but tonight's show is about the big picture. We talk with two longtime scholar-activists about labor's strategies to address two of the larger-scope problems we face.

In the second half of the show, we speak with Brian Miller, Executive Director of United for a Fair Economy and one of the authors of the seventh annual State of the Dream Report, released on Martin Luther King Day. This year's report, subtitled "Drained," contains data and analysis that shows how untargeted economic stimulus spending mostly reaches white people, while African Americans and Latinos continue to disproportionately experience economic hardships.

Host Jamie Partridge talks with local Letter Carriers about their struggle against after-dark delivery. Customer service, safety and postal service finances all suffer with a Portland hiring freeze that forces carriers to deliver mail in the dark.

What's the class consciousness of middle management? Who really has the power to subvert our unfair economy?

In the first half of the show we talk with local union member activist and campaign superstar David Delk, member of AFSCME Local 3135, about what Oregon ballot Measures 66 and 67 mean for working people and why he's volunteering his time to make sure they pass.

How should workers respond to the disappointing Senate debate over health care? Three of organized labor's leading single payer advocates---Cindy Young of the California School Employees Association, Matt Schlobohm of the Maine State AFL-CIO, and Tom Leedham of Teamsters Local 206--discuss the Senate bill and the challenges it poses for unions and working people generally.

Host Jamie Partridge talks with Clarence Thomas, co-chair of the Million Worker March movement, a leader of the African American Longshore Coalition, and former Secretary Treasurer of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Longshore and Warehouse Union – ILWU local 10 abouttaking working class organizing to the “next level”.The show ends in a short interview with Anggie Tamayo, a young human rights activist from <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Colombia, South America, about US corporate and military intervention in her country.<?xml:namespace prefix = o />

Tonight's show is about employers who seize the current economic crisis as an opportunity to pit working people against each other and undermine longstanding union rights.

First, we speak with Karyl Feliciano, a Fred Meyer employee, and Jenny Reed, United Food and Commercial Worker (UFCW) union business representative, on large-scale contract negotiations with multiple employers, including Safeway, Albertsons, and Fred Meyer. The Hillsboro Fred Meyer recently called the cops on Jenny Reed and two other union representatives just for talking to union members at the grocery store.

Then, we speak with Bryan Mercer and Sean Jin of the Media Mobilizing Project to take a look at the severe anti-union spin of news coverage of the transit strike in Philadelphia that ended today.

But, it's not all discouraging news today. We'll close with a little good news for workers in the airline industry.

Thirty years ago, labor historian Bob Bussel worked on the organizing drive at J.P. Stevens, a violently anti-union Southern textile manufacturer--a campaign the inspired the movie Norma Rae. Besides giving actress Sally Field a career-defining role, the J.P Stevens drive gave rise to the "corporate campaign" strategy which became a standard weapon in the union arsenal. Bob Bussel talks with Peter Shapiro about the continuing significance of the J.P. Stevens drive and shares memories of the late Crystal Lee Sutton, who was the prototype for Sally Field's character.

Comments

we would like the opportunity to tell our side of the AFT national trusteeship of our local on July 7. what has happened is a blatant violation of democracy. can we get some air time to tell our story?

I would be very interested in contacting your local and providing airtime for this discussion. Please send me a contact person or a summary of your position. Lane and I will have an official from AFT Local 2277 on our show... and perhaps we could arrange for a represenatative of the national federation to call in.